Alleged gay anal examinations brought against Kenyan court

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Two men have initiated legal proceedings before Kenyan court in order to have alleged anal examinations declared as being unconstitutional after they were submitted to such tests last year.

Rights activists have firmly condemned said examinations as inhuman and humiliating. New York-based Human Rights Watch declared such forced tests might constitute torture under international law.

Homosexuality is outlawed in Kenya. According to Kenyan law, people involved in homosexual acts may be liable to imprisonment but violations are rarely prosecuted.

The file recorded to the court reveals that the two men, whose names have been kept secret, declared they were obliged by security personnel and a public hospital in Kenya's coastal city of Mombasa in February 2015 to undergo anal examination.

In their petition, the men assert they want the court to declare that forced anal examination "amounts to degrading treatment" and "a violation of the human and constitutional rights".

When U.S. President Barack Obama visited Kenya in July last year, he underlined that there was no difference between discrimination on the ground of sex and discrimination on the ground of race, adding that enhancing that difference opened "the path whereby freedoms begin to erode."